Texas reservoir · state assessment record

Ellison Creek Reservoir

Assessment decisions reported by Texas to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.

1,376
Assessed acres
Reservoir
Water type
View watchlist

This waterbody in one line

Ellison Creek Reservoir, a reservoir in Texas, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 3 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2024). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 5% by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (3 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. Fish consumption is assessed as not supporting.

Not Supporting
overall status
P95
Assessed size nationally
P5
Shorter cause list
Not Supporting
aquatic life

Assessment verdicts are the state agency's decisions as reported to EPA ATTAINS; PlainLakes renders them without modification.

F
Water Quality Standing
23/100
Ellison Creek Reservoir

A composite of this record's EPA ATTAINS designated-use verdicts, filed impairment count, and assessment currency, weighted and benchmarked against the national corpus of assessed active waterbodies. This is a water-quality standing, not a human-recreation or property-value judgment, and dimensions with no filed verdict drop out rather than count against the score.

RecreationN/A
Not assessed
Swimming, boating, and other primary/secondary contact recreation
Drinking WaterN/A
Not assessed
Suitability as a public drinking-water source
Aquatic LifeF
Not supporting
Support for fish, invertebrates, and other aquatic organisms
Fish ConsumptionF
Not supporting
Safety of eating fish caught in this water
Impairment BurdenF
3 causes
Filed pollutant/stressor causes, vs. the national corpus of assessed active units
Assessment CurrencyA+
2024
Reporting cycle this record’s verdicts were last decided in

Where Ellison Creek Reservoir stands in the filed register

Paragraphs are selected by this unit's percentiles and use matrix: different lakes lead with different dimensions. Figures are ATTAINS / portal register arithmetic, not advice.

The signature stat: in-state cause rank

Inside Texas, cause-list rank is the local separator: Ellison Creek Reservoir is 15 of 323 indexed units by listed-cause count, toward the top of that state's filed lists.

Large assessed unit

At 1,376 acres, Ellison Creek Reservoir clears the upper tercile of assessed lake-type units with an area on file (1,812 still larger). Size comparisons use the portal's deduplicated lake ranking population, not raw ATTAINS row counts.

No ruled-on use clears the bar

On the uses this filer ruled on, fish consumption, aquatic life, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.

Longer than most cause lists

3 listed causes puts this unit above 90% of assessed lake-type records by list length. Treat that as a coding-and-sampling signal: states that split pollutants finely mint longer lists without proving worse water.

Ellison Creek Reservoir: Category 5, TMDL still owed

Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Ellison Creek Reservoir. Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Texas carries 489 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Ellison Creek Reservoir without modification. See our methodology for reporting-unit limits and gauge linking rules.

Reporting cycle
2024
Texas Integrated Report
Listing category
Category 5
Uses with verdicts
2
Definitive use assessments
Sources retrieved
2026-08-17
Portal-wide ATTAINS + NWIS pull

The record

Designated-use assessments

Fully Supporting and Not Supporting are the state's definitive verdicts; other entries mean the use was not conclusively assessed in this cycle.

Designated use Group Verdict
Aquatic Life Use Aquatic-life or related Not Supporting
Fish Consumption Use Fish-consumption or fishery Not Supporting

The record

Listed impairment causes

Causes the state listed as impairing designated uses of this reservoir, with the cycle each was first listed and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.

Cause Affected uses First listed Cleanup standing
PCBs - Fish Consumption Advisory Fish Consumption Use 2006 TMDL priority: Low
Sediment Bioassay Aquatic Life Use 2006 TMDL priority: Low
Dioxin - Fish Consumption Advisory Fish Consumption Use 2016 TMDL priority: Low

Probable sources named by the state

Each source below is listed under the cause the state filed it against, and carries the word the state filed with it — confirmed, or suspected.

PCBs - Fish Consumption Advisory
Industrial Point Source Discharge (suspected)
Sediment Bioassay
Industrial Point Source Discharge (suspected)
Dioxin - Fish Consumption Advisory
Industrial Point Source Discharge (suspected)

Reading the record

Where Ellison Creek Reservoir sits among peers

3% of Texas's lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported

Texas ruled definitively on 2 designated uses at Ellison Creek Reservoir and found none of them supported. The dataset shows 97 Texas lakes judged to that same depth.

Texas's assessed lakes are most often judged on 4 uses; this one was judged on 2.

3 N

Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.

Share of Texas lakes judged on 2 designated uses with the same outcome
Assessed lakes in Texas by how many uses were ruled on and how those rulings came out
Less More
Assessed lakes in Texas by how many uses were ruled on and how those rulings came out (lakes)
12345+
All supported 7764214934
Mixed Not possible18193833
None supported 143 (this record)000

Ringed cell: Ellison Creek Reservoir. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.

Scale and rank

Ellison Creek Reservoir is one of 489 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Texas, and one of 323 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 1,376 assessed acres it ranks 1,813th by assessed size among the 38,628 lakes the dataset carries an area for, counting a state’s repeated filings of one water once, behind 1,812 lakes with a larger one.

Not yet on record

The state has not yet filed a definitive recreation verdict for this record; that field populates when it reports it in a future Integrated Report cycle.

In context

Where Ellison Creek Reservoir sits nationally

Assessed size among U.S. lakes

Distribution of assessed acreage across ATTAINS lakes filed with an area, counting a state’s repeated filings of one water once

1,376 Top 5% larger than 95% of 38,628 lakes

lakes the dataset carries an area for, counting a state’s repeated filings of one water once, bucketed by value

Source EPA ATTAINS · Reporting cycles 1987–2026

Listed causes vs waterbodies carrying a verdict

How many impairment causes U.S. waterbodies with a reported verdict carry

3 Longer than most more listed causes than 90% of 23,610 waterbodies carrying a verdict

named waterbodies carrying a verdict, bucketed by value

Source EPA ATTAINS · Reporting cycles 1987–2026

In both charts each bar is a band and taller bars hold more waterbodies; the dashed line and filled bar mark Ellison Creek Reservoir. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.

In context

Texas context

ATTAINS carries 489 lake-type waterbodies in Texas, 125 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 331 fully supporting. Among the 323 indexed units there, Ellison Creek Reservoir ranks 15th by listed-cause count (3 listed causes) and 195th by assessed size among the 323 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (125 statewide) . Its listed causes include PCBs - Fish Consumption Advisory and Dioxin - Fish Consumption Advisory, which also appear among Texas's most-filed impairment causes (led by Algae). It also lists Sediment Bioassay, outside that top-five list.

Other large assessed lakes in Texas Assessed acres
Lake Texoma Fully Supporting 49,400
Toledo Bend Reservoir Not Supporting 41,046
International Falcon Reservoir Fully Supporting 36,817
Sam Rayburn Reservoir Not Supporting 28,238
International Amistad Reservoir Fully Supporting 21,328
Lake Livingston Not Supporting 18,238

Peers near Ellison Creek Reservoir's size or cause load

Similar assessed acres

Nearest filed extents (1,376 acres here).

Similar cause load

Nearest listed-cause counts (3 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.

How peers are picked

What to do with this record

  • The fish-consumption use is assessed as not supporting. Before eating fish from this reservoir, check your state fish-advisory program for species-specific meal limits. Consumption status guide
  • Impairment listings follow the Clean Water Act 303(d) process; a listing is a regulatory finding, not a closure notice. 303(d) explained

PlainLakes renders state assessment decisions and federal gauge observations without modification. It does not issue advisories.

Assessment decisions on this page are rendered directly from state Integrated Report records in EPA's ATTAINS system; gauge figures are daily-value observations from the USGS National Water Information System, no number is typed in by an editor. Overall status, use verdicts, and causes are the state's reported decisions for assessment unit TX-0404A_01. Counts and percentiles are computed across all lake-type records PlainLakes ingests from ATTAINS. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-17. Primary sources: EPA ATTAINS and USGS National Water Information System.